First Harvest

It was finally time to harvest the crops! Iris was excited as she hurriedly drank her morning soup and washed up. Iris dressed up warmly with her cloak, boots, a layered short skirts, and a tank top. Iris knewvit was sunny, but the weather could take a turn for the worse at any time during the rainy season.

Caspian smiled dotingly at Iris as he carried her out of their home. Basil carried the mattresses he had rolled and tied with vines alongside the pillows in a animal skin bag. The bed frames had been broken down into pieces and tied with vines as well. Basil had taken them  from Iris's and Caspian's beds so they would be able to have two beds to rest in later that night.

Iris had made her mates prepare a small shack from planks stuffed into the ground and then covered with a thatch roof made from long grass and sticks. This was then covered with a few animal skins to provide a weather proof shelter. The beds would then be moved over to this shack and rebuilt so they could sleep nearby over the course of the week.

Iris had also had large chunks of wood fashioned into tables to hold the harvested produce while they dried. There were also covers made from similarly sized hollowed out chunks of wood. This was to cover the produce if it began to suddenly rain. Due to the sheer amount of produce, hundreds of tables had to be prepared with four tables each around a campfire.

It would take several days with just the four of them to harvest this huge field of produce and even longer to dry out the sweet peas, carrots, some spinach, and some onions. Only the potatoes could directly be packed up into Iris's bag and be ready to go.

Ember flew with Iris on his back while Basil and Caspian carried the bed materials. Basil and Caspian had agreed to just shove the two beds together and sleep on either side of Iris. However, Ember insisted on creating a grass nest and sleeping alone. Ember was clearly against cozying up with other males no matter what.

When Ember and Iris reached the fields, Iris walked over to admire all the produce. They had previously planted more than a thousand packages of seeds, which had enough seeds to grow a few plants each. On top of this was the fact that each seed that grew successfully, there would be numerous plants ready to harvest. All this amounted to a ginormous amount of food and work for a mere four people.

Iris showed Ember how to collect the sweet peas off of their vines, handing him a few large animal hides and strips of hide to tie them with. Since Ember didn't like to get dirty and wasn't suited to digging, it was best to save things like the potatoes, carrots, or onions for the others to attend to.

The sweet peas would require shelling after they were all harvested, but Iris knew such a large amount of work should be taken one step at a time. Iris headed towards the small bunches of spinach sticking out of the ground and began to gather them up. The spinach would require washing before drying since there was bound to be a lot of dirt and grit stuck to the leaves.

Luckily, the plants could be harvested and dried in batches. If they remained where they were, they could be kept fresh for a while without rotting. This was quite helpful since there was no way everything could be sorted in one day.

When Caspian and Basil arrived, Caspian went to set up the bedroom while Basil went over to greet Iris.

"What can I help with?"

Iris smiled up at Basil. He looked quite handsome even with his tail and ears tucked away. The sunshine reflected beautiful off his dark hair and his forest green eyes were as vivid as ever. Iris sighed dreamily as she admired her attractive mate.

Then, realizing she had been asked a question, Iris snapped out of it. Iris led Basil over to the onions and taught him how to pull them up. She then instructed Basil on how to remove the roots and cut the top stems down to an inch or two high. Any onions meant for storing long term would still need to dry while in the sun for a bit, but the rest would have their skins removed, sliced thin, and then thoroughly dried for long term storage.

Next, Iris led Caspian over to the carrots. As Caspian had harvested carrots previously, Iris didn't have to explain much. She just explained how thinly to slice the carrots after washing them so that Caspian could prepare them for drying after harvesting a batch.

With that, Iris went back to collecting spinach until she had a large bags worth. After washing the leaves in the closet by river and shaking off any excess moisture, Iris carried the spinach to the tables to spread them out for drying.

There, Ember was waiting for Iris to give him further instructions.

"What do I do with these? I've filled all the bags you gave me."

Iris's eyes grew big as she noticed Ember was telling the truth. Iris didn't think she had wasted any time collecting the spinach so she could only chock it up to how efficiently her males worked. Iris quickly instructed Ember

"Why don't you start the campfires and collect some extra firewood for us. I can start shelling these by myself and set them out to dry until you return. This should be enough to dry for now so we should just focus on the shelling portion for today and collect another batch tomorrow."

Ember nodded and went off to do as instructed. Before Ember returned, Caspian and Basil each returned with full bags one after the other. They quickly got to work washing, cutting, and spreading the onions and carrots out on the tables. As there was still plenty left to harvest, none of it would be left whole for using fresh until the final batch was harvested.

Thanks to the campfires, the good weather holding, and cutting the produce paper thin; all of the first batch of produce was able to be dried within a day. The potatoes would be the last thing to be harvested since it would only require washing the dirt off and then a brief drying. Otherwise, the potatoes could easily sit and wait to be harvested.

As it was so dark, it was too difficult for Iris to move around to collect the produce and put it in her bag. Thus, she left them to finish drying with their wooden covers on. Ember, Caspian, and Basil each took shifts standing guard at night to watch for wild animals and beastmen.

As this amount of food was easily enough to feed the entirety of the artic wolf tribe for a season even without the addition of meat; their harvest was considered quite valuable. No one wanted to see anything happen to the food they had worked so hard to grow.

Unfortunately, the process of harvesting ended up taking closer to two weeks to complete than one. However, everyone still felt like their hard work was quite worth it. Iris smiled as she got the system notification

[System 316: Congratulations host! You have successfully grown and harvested your first field of crops. What food related modern item would you like to request for your reward?]

Iris had carefully thought about this question over the course of the month. While a leavening agent like baking soda, baking powder, or yeast was tempting; it was not as helpful as it could be. Who knew how much she'd be given if she requested such a thing and how long it would last. Besides, beer yeast and wild yeast had potential in the future. As for baking soda and powder? A more dense and chewy baked good that was still delicious was possible using whipped egg whites.

Thus, Iris turned to something she could easily use over a longer period of time. Iris wanted a meat grinder that was a hand crank model and would not require electricity. This would prove a much better investment since it could be used long term and open up a whole new world of cooking for Iris.